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[25] L. c., "Remarks and Facts relative to the American Paper Money," 1764.
[26] See "Papers on American Politics; Remarks and Facts relative to the American Paper Money," 1764, l. c.
[27] See e. g. Galiani, "Della Moneta," in vol. 3 of Scrittori Classici italiani di Economia politica (Published by Custodi). Parte Moderna, Milano, 1803. "La fatica, he says, l'unica che d valore alla cosa" ("only effort can give value to any thing"). The designation of labor as "fatica," strain, effort, is characteristic of the southerner.
[28] Steuart's work, "An Inquiry into the Principles of Political Economy, being an Essay on the Science of Domestic Policy in Free Nations," appeared first in London in two quarto volumes in the year 1767, ten years before Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations." I quote from the Dublin edition of 1770. (The references to pages are the same for the standard London edition of 1767, except where otherwise stated. Translator.)
[29] Steuart, l. c., vol. I., p. 181-183.
[30] Steuart, l. c., vol. I., p. 361-362.
[31] See chapter I., book II., vol. I. "of the reciprocal connections between Trade and Industry" (Translator).
[32] He declares, therefore, the patriarchal form of agriculture which is devoted to the direct production of use-values for the owner of the land, to be an "abuse," not in Sparta, or Rome, or even in Athens, but in the industrial countries of the eighteenth century. This "abusive agriculture" is not "trade," but a "direct means of subsisting." Just as capitalistic agriculture clears the country of superfluous mouths, so does the capitalistic mode of manufacture clear the factory of superfluous hands.
[33] Thus e. g., Adam Smith says: "Equal quantities of labour, at all times and places, may be said to be of equal value to the labourer. In his ordinary state of health, strength and spirits, in the ordinary degree of his skill and dexterity, he must always lay down the same portion of his ease, his liberty, and his happiness. The price which he pays must always be the same, whatever may be the quantity of goods which he receives in return for it. Of these, indeed, it may sometimes purchase a greater and sometimes a smaller quantity; but it is their value which varies, not that of the labour which purchases them.... Labour alone, therefore, never varying in its own value ... is their [commodities'] real price, etc. Adam Smith (Book I., ch. V., p. 34, Oxford, 1869. Translator.)
[34] David Ricardo, "On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation," 3rd edition, London, 1821, p. 3.
[35] Sismondi, "Etudes sur l'Economie Politique," t. II., Bruxelles, 1837. "C'est l'opposition entre la valeur usuelle ... et la valeur changeable laquelle le commerce a reduit toute chose," p. 161. [Paris edition, p. 229, Transl.]
[36] Sismondi l. c., p. 163-166 seq. [Paris edition, 230 etf. Transl.]
[37] Perhaps the silliest to be found are the annotations of J. B. Say to the French translation of Ricardo, made by Constancio, and the most pedantically arrogant are the remarks of Mr. MacLeod in his newly published "Theory of Exchange," London, 1858.
[38] This objection raised against Ricardo by bourgeois economists was taken up later by the socialists. Having assumed the correctness of the formula, they charged the practice with contradiction to the theory and appealed to bourgeois society to realize in practice the conclusions which were supposed to follow from its theoretical principles. That was at least the way in which the English socialists turned Ricardo's formula of exchange value against political economy. It remained for Mr. Proudhon not only to proclaim the fundamental principle of old society as the principle of the new, but also to declare himself the discoverer of the formula in which Ricardo summed up the combined results of classical English political economy. It has been proven that the utopian interpretation of the Ricardian formula was about forgotten in England when Mr. Proudhon "discovered" it on the other side of the Canal. (Cf. my work: "Misre de la Philosophie," etc., Paris, 1847, paragraph on la valeur constitue.)
[39] True, Aristotle sees that the exchange value of commodities underlies their prices: " , , ." ("It is clear that exchange existed before coin. For it does not make any difference whether you give five beds for a house, or as much money as five beds are worth"). On the other hand, since commodities acquire only in price the form of exchange value with respect to one another, he makes them commensurable through money. " , , . , , ' ' , ." ("Therefore all has to be appraised. In that way exchange may always take place, and, with it, society can exist. Coin, like measure, makes everything commensurable and equal, for without exchange there would be no society, without equality there would be no exchange, and without commensurability, no equality.") He does not conceal from himself that these different objects measured by money are entirely incommensurable quantities. What he is after is the common unit of commodities as exchange values, which as an ancient Greek he was unable to find. He gets out of the difficulty by making commensurable through money what is in itself incommensurable, so far as it is necessary for practical purposes. " , ." ("In truth it is impossible to make things that are so different, commensurable, but for practical purposes it is permissible.") Aristotle, Ethica Nicomachea. l. 5, c. 8, edit. Bekkeri. Oxonii, 1837.
[40] The peculiar circumstance that, while the ounce of gold serves in England as the unit of the standard of money, it is not divided into aliquot parts has been explained as follows: "Our coinage was originally adapted to the employment of silver only—hence an ounce of silver can always be divided into a certain adequate number of pieces of coin; but as gold was introduced at a later period into a coinage adapted only to silver, an ounce of gold cannot be coined into an adequate number of pieces." Maclaren: "A Sketch of the History of the Currency," p. 16, London, 1858.
